Kinky Friedman is not clowning on new album ‘Circus of...

1of3Kinky Friedman recorded his new album at his ranch near Kerrville last summerPhoto: Tom Reel /San Antonio Express-News

2of3Kinky Friedman works on his new album in the summer of 2017. (That’s former Express-News music writer Jim Beal Jr. playing bass.) The new album is a serious singer-songwriter effort. The songs include “Autographs in the Rain,” “Back to Grace” and “Sayin’ Goodbye.”Photo: Tom Reel /San Antonio Express-News

3of3The songs on Kinky Friedman’s new album, “Circus of Life,” reflect a different side of the musician, writer and sometime politician, who’s known for his comic personna.Photo: Tom Reel /San Antonio Express-News

Is redemption possible for Kinky Friedman?

Friedman’s first album of original material in decades reveals a vulnerable, haunted side that will surprise many. It’s called “Circus of Life.”

The low-key, introspective and sentimental songs were written quickly after a pep talk from Willie Nelson and recorded sparsely last summer at Friedman’s Echo Hill Ranch.

Expect songs like “A Dog Named Freedom,” “Jesus in Pajamas,” “Zoey,” “Spitfire” and “Me & My Guitar” to be on the set list on Sunday when Friedman, as he put it, “works without a net, doing ’em solo.”

“Sometimes I have to stop a song and just go, ‘(Expletive),’ and take a little parakeet peck of Mexican mouthwash,” he said about getting courage from a sip of tequila.

Friedman said depression and career missteps were at the root of his nearly 40-year hiatus from serious songwriting.

“This record is strange, even for me who wrote it,” he said. “It will make you cry if you listen to it enough.”

In tone, the songs recall early Kris Kristofferson and Leonard Cohen.

Reviews have been positive, even gushing, but Friedman knows some won’t accept it. It’s not radio fare or “songs that were made for tailgating parties,” he said.

“Never, at any time, did I say, ‘What will the millennials think?’ or ‘Will the disc jockeys play this?’ I really didn’t really care.”

There was a time when he cared deeply and flirted with the big time.

Back in 1975 at the old Longneck, a nightclub on the side of a bowling alley on Blanco Road, Friedman jammed onstage with Leon Russell and Willie Nelson.

A streak of antic humor ran through songs such as “We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service” and “Ballad of Charles Whitman,” but the songwriting was undeniable.

Country music outlaws Waylon Jennings, Tompall Glaser and Nelson sang backup in the ’70s on the satirical “They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore.”

“That was great,” Friedman recalled about those days. “We had a lot of fun. Everybody was so high they needed a stepladder to scratch their ass.”

Music journalist Sam Kindrick documented the Longneck gig and Friedman’s early hijinks. For example, his attention-grabbing gold-chain fashion statements akin to a New York pimp in a Nudie suit — or the Indian headdress he wore onstage.

“Behind the comedian and the humorist façade is one of the most sensitive storytellers Texas ever known,” Kindrick said.

He believes Friedman’s version of Peter La Farge’s “Ballad of Ira Hayes,” about a Pima Indian and marine who helped hoist the American flag at Iwo Jima during World War II, is superior to Johnny Cash's popular version.

But some, like rock critic Dave Marsh, say it’s too late after decades as a public provocateur for Friedman to expect to be accepted as merely a singer-songwriter. There’s too much baggage.

“He has a very defined image, and it’s a straightjacket,” Marsh said. “I don’t know what Kinky can be thinking.”

The iconoclastic Friedman’s political and social views are well known, Marsh added. He has mocked the political establishment on both sides of the aisle.

“It’s his attitude that a good number of people find offensive and not funny,” he said. “I always thought Kinky was kinda selling himself short. The message was that he was a (jerk).”

Author Joe Nick Patoski agrees that Friedman’s serious singer-songwriter persona is a tough sell, noting that his last album, the superb “The Loneliest Man in the World,” was largely ignored.

“Everybody in Texas knows Kinky Friedman, the brash, loud-talking, insult-spewing wiseass comedian who has described himself as ‘an equal opportunity offender,’” Patoski said via email.

“But hardly anyone realizes that behind the façade is a writer and composer who can play it straight and sensitive, if you give him a chance.”

Musician and former Express-News music columnist Jim Beal played bass on the new record. He said Friedman’s mortality and intellect is at its core.

“I feel that (the songs) are closer to his private persona, but he can turn on a dime,” Beal said. “He’s always had sensitive songs along with the satire. But they’re overshadowed. It’s like Andy Warhol. All anyone remembers is Marilyn Monroe and soup cans.”

In the end, Friedman describes himself as a troublemaker who didn’t quite make it but still has something to say.

“Most of the people who are flamethrowers or troublemakers, they don’t make it very far,” he said. “The industry doesn’t encourage that, and the people don’t buy it.”

Hector Saldana is the curator of the Texas Music Collection at The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University .